Court of Appeal Judge Alan Mendonca has accepted responsibility for a decision to temporarily close the Hall of Justice in Port-of-Spain between last week and Monday due to concerns over COVID-19 infections.
Justice Mendonca, who was acting for Chief Justice Ivor Archie until he returned to Trinidad from a foreign trip last Thursday, made the admission while responding to concerns raised by Appellate Judge Nolan Bereaux and High Court Judge Carol Gobin.
In the correspondence, obtained by Guardian Media, Justice Mendonca clarified that he took the decision and not administrative staff, as suspected by his colleagues.
“So, it was my decision. It was not a decision of the acting Court Executive Administrator or other members of staff,” he said.
Justice Mendonca stated that he was first informed of possible COVID-19 exposure on August 14.
The following day, he received an update indicating that the situation was “much worse” than anticipated, with a number of persons testing positive and several others being primary and secondary contacts of those infected.
“This was as a consequence of members of staff of the Judiciary being present at the Hall who were all involved in the task of collating documents to meet an urgent request on behalf of the Mercy Committee,” he said.
He said he was also told that the medical advice was to suspend in-person activities at the location for the rest of the week.
“I considered that we were in the long vacation period, that in-person hearings were not likely to take place, that any application fit for vacation business could be heard virtually, that disruption to the administration of justice would likely be at a minimum, that the pandemic is still very much with us, cases are again rising, that people are still dying, and that my area of expertise is not medicine,” he said.
Justice Mendonca admitted that he had “balked and bristled” at the closure of public buildings, including the Hall of Justice, in the past and may have reacted in a similar manner as Justice Gobin, who admitted ignoring the directive.
“The perspective is, however, different and attitude changes when you are responsible for the health and safety of others,” he said, as he explained why he accepted the medical advice.
However, he admitted that consideration should have been given to putting special measures in place to allow judges access if required to perform their judicial functions.
“I did not pursue that and I apologise to those who were inconvenienced,” he said.
Justice Mendonca’s explanation and apology was warmly received by Bereaux, Gobin and Justice Seepersad, who also weighed in on the issue after it was raised.
Justice Gobin said, “I am grateful for the respect you have shown and your example of leadership and accountability in providing your explanation.”
“Your timely explanation was informative and refreshing. It is hoped that this situation would catalyse much-needed change,” Justice Seepersad said.
While Justice Bereaux accepted the apology, he noted that he still had concerns over other COVID-19 policies that did not involve Justice Mendonca.
“My wider concerns as to the erosion of independence remain, as illustrated by the examples I gave,” he said.
In his letter sent earlier this week, Justice Bereaux highlighted a policy of giving judges and their support staff alternate days in which they could access the building.
He said he considered the directive unconstitutional and ignored it in the past.
However, he admitted that on one occasion, he was forced to confront and rebuff a directive from a member of the administrative staff when he attempted to access the location on a date he was not assigned.
“This is an administrative staff member whom I have never met nor have been informally introduced to, who made no effort to contact me to find out why it was necessary for me to come to the Hall of Justice but who was sufficiently assured in her authority that she could instruct the guards that I be perfunctorily debarred from entering the Hall of Justice,” he said.
He also gave an example of a colleague being forced to “isolate” in a designated area despite not testing positive or displaying symptoms, simply because she sought to access the location when not assigned.
“These are examples of how the administrative staff has been permitted, wrongly and with impunity, to extend their authority to areas over which they have no jurisdiction,” Justice Bereaux said.
